My name's Bridget Pepin
and I'm an art historian and painter and painter,
and also first cousin twice removed of the Vorticist painter Helen Sanders
Vorticisim was an English art movement launched, unfortunately, in the summer of
1914, which is perhaps not the best moment to launch an art movement
What the vorticists were trying to do was to go beyond
cubism and futurism and
create a new art that was
completely responsive to the modern world of cities and machines
This is one of Helen's fantasies completely abstract works
It is entirely constructed of angles and straight lines. You have
the repetition of shapes to a very great extent. You have
triangles here, you have overlapping trapezoid shapes here
So this is something that very is very typical of vorticist work
and I think makes it very different from either cusbist or futurist work
Some vorticist works are completely abstract, others have hints of perhaps buildings or perhaps figures
This is one of only two paintings by
Jessica Dismore that has survived from the vorticist period.
It's very different from works by some of the other members of the group.
It seems to represent space.
You have these
quasi architectural forms floating around in
an almost sort of gravity-less
Environment so a very beautiful and very distinctive Vorticist work, which makes it all the more tragic
That only one other vorticist work by still survives
It is thought that her executor may have destroyed some vorticist works after her death in 1939
Because he thought that it can't they cast doubts on her sanity
Of course you know there was a general perception that women were
Somehow less able to be artists for men other art movements like cubism and futurism
excluded women but there were two women vorticists who were sort of fully paid-up members of the movement
Dance, I think is the most exciting of all
It obviously shows one of the very new dances that were sweeping in from America
Using the jazz rhythms that were being developed in the United States
You can see these dancers breaking all the accepted rules of dance
And they're responding to the excitement of the syncopation of the Jazz
This drawing vorticist composition is by Helen Sanders and dates from around about 1914 or 1915
There's quite a lot of possible interpretations of this work
But I think perhaps the figures below are the vorticists and perhaps of some kind of pendulum and perhaps. They're going to
dislodge the sleeping figures of the establishment above
This painting which is hanging outside the vorticist exhibition was painted by William Roberts one of the vorticists in
1961 to 62 so it's not really a vorticist work
It was painted to demonstrate that there was a group of vorticists
The painting shows the two women vorticists, Jessica Dismorr and Helen Sanders
Who are arriving in time for dessert but not guests at the main meal.